The Wizard of London (3 page)

She
nodded. “Like being a doctor.”

He
smiled. “Very like. Now. Here is your first lesson in patience. I will
undertake to begin your teaching only after I feel that you have settled well
into the school.
I
will choose the time.”

She
sighed, a little disappointed, but knowing better than to argue—because
M’dela had schooled her in much the same way.

And
since that was clearly Karamjit’s way of saying “you can go
now,” she excused herself.

Besides,
it was teatime.

***

Sarah
was used to being taught in a very large class; she had been learning her
letters along with the rest of the African children whose parents thought it
wise to learn the foreigners’ ways. Unlike some missions, there was neither
bribery nor coercion involved in getting the African children to come to
school, but Sarah’s parents had pointed out that whether the natives
liked it or not, the foreigners had the guns, the soldiers, and the big ships
to bring more of both; that they were unlikely to be rid of them, and it would
be a good thing to not have to rely on translators who might lie, and might
come from another tribe altogether. And that it would be an even better thing
to be able to read treaties and agreements for themselves, and not depend on
someone else to say what was in such things. And it was the tribal chief who
had thought it over, and decreed that those who were apt to the teaching should
come. There had been nearly thirty people in Sarah’s class, and only one
teacher. There were only six in this class, and she had three different
teachers. To her mind, this was quite astonishing.

A
tall thin woman, Miss Payne, taught Reading, Penmanship, Grammar, and
Literature. She looked as if she was the sort who would be very cross all the
time, but in fact, she was quiet and reserved, and when she got excited, her
cheeks went quite pink, but there were no other signs of her state. Other than
that, she was evidently someone Mem’sab trusted, and she always seemed to
know when one of her students was having difficulties, because she always came
right to the desk to help him or her out.

Professor
Hawthorne, an old man who spoke very slowly and with great passion about
mathematics, was in charge of teaching that subject, and Geometry as well. He
did not have anything like the patience of Miss Payne, and if he thought a
pupil was being lazy, he was able to deliver quite a tongue-lashing. “The
ability to understand mathematics,” he would say with vehemence,
“is the only thing that distinguishes Man from the lesser animals!”

Sarah
decided that she was not going to tell him that Grey could count.

Madame
Jeanette taught French, Latin, and History. She spoke French with a Parisian
accent, which she was quite proud of. She was also extremely pretty and young,
and there were rumors among the boys that she had been a ballet dancer at the
Paris Opera, or perhaps a cancan girl at the Moulin Rouge. Sarah thought that
the boys would be quite disappointed if they learned the truth—a truth
that Sarah had inadvertently “overheard” when Madame Jeanette was
thinking very hard one day. The truth was simply that she was extremely
well-educated, but that her family had fallen on hard times, and she had to go
be a schoolteacher or a governess. After several wretched postings, a friend
had directed her to England and Mem’sab. Mem’sab and Sahib placed
no restrictions on her movements, did not spy upon her, did not forbid her to
have beaus, and encouraged her to spend all the time she liked at the British Museum
outside of lessons. The tiny difference in pay was far outweighed by the
enormous difference in freedom, to her mind. And lately, there was a handsome
young barrister who kept taking the carrel next to hers in the Reading
Room…

There
were four other teachers, not counting the nursery teachers, but Sarah
wasn’t taking any classes from any of them.

Madame
Jeanette was perfectly normal, but Professor Hawthorne and Miss Payne
had—something—about them. Sarah didn’t know just what it was
yet, but she had the feeling there was a great deal more to both of them than
appeared on the surface.

The
other five children in her class were very nice, but—well, Sarah was just
used to spending a great deal of time in the company of adults, or people who
acted like adults, and it didn’t seem to her as if she had much in common
with the others. They invited her to play in their games, but they seemed
relieved when she declined. She was a great deal more attracted to some of the
older children, but they ignored the younger ones, and she couldn’t think
of a good way to get their attention.

So,
for the first month, she spent most of her free time alone, in the kitchen with
the cooks and their helpers, or with Karamjit. Often she simply followed
Karamjit on his rounds. He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, when he
wasn’t busy, he would talk to her as if she were a grown person, telling
her about his home in India, asking her about Africa. And sometimes, he would
drop little nuggets of information about the school, the teachers, and how it
had all come to be.

It
was all quite interesting, and during the daytime, enough to keep her from
being at all lonely.

But
at night—at night, she wished (for she wouldn’t call it
“praying,” which she instinctively knew should be reserved for very
special needs) for two things.

A
friend, a real friend, another girl by preference.

And Grey.

NAN—that was
her only name, for no one had told her of any other—lurked anxiously
about the back gate of the Big House. She was new to this neighborhood, for her
slatternly mother had lost yet another job in a gin mill and they had been
forced to move all the way across Whitechapel, and this part of London was as
foreign to Nan as the wilds of Australia. She had been told by more than one of
the children hereabouts that if she hung about the back gate after tea, a
strange man with a towel wrapped about his head would come out with a basket of
food and give it out to any child who happened to be there.

Now,
there were not as many children willing to accept this offering as might have
been expected, even in this poor neighborhood. They were afraid of the man,
afraid of his piercing, black eyes, his swarthy skin, and his way of walking
like a great hunting cat. Some suspected poison in the food, others murmured that
he and the woman of the house were foreigners, and intended to kill English
children with terrible curses on the food they offered. But Nan was faint with
hunger; she hadn’t eaten in two days, and was willing to dare poison,
curses, and anything else for a bit of bread.

Furthermore,
Nan had a secret defense; under duress, she could often sense the intent and
even dimly hear the thoughts of others. That was how she avoided her mother
when it was most dangerous to approach her, as well as avoiding other dangers
in the streets themselves. Nan was certain that if this man had any ill
intentions, she would know it.

Still,
as teatime and twilight both approached, she hung back a little from the
wrought-iron gate, beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to see
what, if anything, her mother brought home. If she’d found a job—or
a “gen’lmun”—there might be a farthing or two to spare
for food before Aggie spent the rest on gin. Behind the high, grimy wall, the
Big House loomed dark and ominous against the smoky, lowering sky, and the
strange, carved creatures sitting atop every pillar in the wall and every
corner of the House fair gave Nan the shivers whenever she looked at them.
There were no two alike, and most of them were beasts out of a rummy’s
worst deliriums. The only one that Nan could see that looked at all normal was
a big, gray bird with a fat body and a hooked beak that sat on top of the
right-hand gatepost of the back gate.

Nan
had no way to tell time, but as she waited, growing colder and
hungrier—and more nervous—with each passing moment, she began to
think for certain that the other children had been having her on. Teatime was
surely long over; the tale they’d told her was nothing more than that,
something to gull the newcomer with. It was getting dark, there were no other
children waiting, and after dark it was dangerous even for a child like Nan,
wise in the ways of the evil streets, to be abroad. Disappointed, and with her
stomach a knot of pain, Nan began to turn away from the gate.

“I
think that there is no one here, Missy Sa’b,” said a low, deep
voice, heavily accented, sounding disappointed. Nan hastily turned back, and
peering through the gloom, she barely made out a tall, dark form with a smaller
one beside it.

“No,
Karamjit—look there!” replied the voice of a young girl, and the
smaller form pointed at Nan. A little girl ran up to the gate, and waved
through the bars. “Hello! I’m Sarah—what’s your name?
Would you like some tea bread? We’ve plenty!”

The
girl’s voice, also strangely accented, had none of the imperiousness that
Nan would have expected coming from the child of a “toff.” She
sounded only friendly and helpful, and that, more than anything, was what drew
Nan back to the wrought-iron gate.

“Indeed,
Missy Sarah speaks the truth,” the man said; and as Nan drew nearer, she
saw that the other children had not exaggerated when they described him. His
head was wrapped around in a cloth; he wore a long, high-collared coat of some
bright stuff, and white trousers that were tucked into glossy boots. He was as
fiercely erect as the iron gate itself; lean and angular as a hunting tiger,
with skin so dark she could scarcely make out his features, and eyes that
glittered at her like beads of black glass.

But
strangest, and perhaps most ominous of all, Nan could sense nothing from the
dark man. He might not even have been there; there was a blank wall where his
thoughts should have been.

The
little girl beside him was perfectly ordinary by comparison; a bright little
Jenny-wren of a thing, not pretty, but sweet, with a trusting smile that went
straight to Nan’s heart. Nan had a motherly side to her; the younger
children of whatever neighborhood she lived in tended to flock to her, look up
to her, and follow her lead. She, in her turn, tried to keep them out of
trouble, and whenever there was extra to go around she fed them out of her own
scant stocks.

But
the tall fellow frightened her, and made her nervous, especially when further
moments revealed no more of his intentions than Nan had sensed before; the
girl’s bright eyes noted that, and she whispered something to the dark
man as Nan withdrew a little. He nodded, and handed her a basket that looked
promisingly heavy.

Then
he withdrew out of sight, leaving the little girl alone at the gate. The child
pushed the gate open enough to hand the basket through. “Please,
won’t you come and take this? It’s awfully heavy.”

In
spite of the clear and open brightness of the little girl’s thoughts, ten
years of hard living had made Nan suspicious. The child might know nothing of
what the dark man wanted. “Woi’re yer givin’ food
away?” she asked, edging forward a little, but not yet quite willing to
take the basket.

The
little girl put the basket down on the ground and clasped her hands behind her
back. “Well, Mem’sab says that she won’t tell Maya and Vashti
to make less food for tea, because she won’t have us going hungry while
we’re growing. And she says that old, stale toast is fit only for
starlings, so people ought to have the good of it before it goes stale. And she
says that there’s no reason why children outside our gate have to go to
bed hungry when we have enough to share, and Mummy and Papa say that sharing is
charity and charity is one of the cardinal virtues, so Mem’sab is being
virtuous, which is a good thing, because she’ll go to heaven and she
would make a good angel.”

Most
of that came out in a rush that quite bewildered Nan, especially the last,
about cardinal virtues and heaven and angels. But she did understand that
“Mem’sab,” whoever that was, must be one of those daft
religious creatures that gave away food free for the taking, and Nan’s
own mum had told her that there was no point in letting other people take what
you could get from people like that. So Nan edged forward and made a snatch at
the basket handle.

She
tried, that is; it proved a great deal heavier than she’d thought, and
she gave an involuntary grunt at the weight of it.

“Be
careful,” the little girl admonished mischievously. “It’s
heavy.”

“Yer
moight’o warned me!” Nan said, a bit indignant, and more than a bit
excited. If this wasn’t a trick—if there wasn’t a brick in
the basket—oh, she’d eat well tonight, and tomorrow, too!

“Come
back tomorrow!” the little thing called, as she shut the gate and turned
and skipped toward the house. “Remember me! I’m Sarah Jane, and
I’ll bring the basket tomorrow!”

“Thankee,
Sarah Jane,” Nan called back, belatedly; then, just in case these strange
creatures would think better of their generosity, she made the basket and
herself vanish into the night.

***

Isabelle
listened to Sarah’s version of the meeting at the gate, and nodded
gravely. She had already gotten Karamjit’s narrative, and the two
tallied. Both Sarah and Karamjit sensed nascent Talent in the child; this must
have been the Talent that she herself had sensed a day or two ago, and had sent
out a gentle lure for. It looked as if her bait had been taken.

Probably
the little girl in question had very minimal control over what she could do; in
her world, it would be enough that she had the sense of danger before something
happened to her. That might well be enough… for the short run, at any
rate. But her own husband had been a street boy collected from a sad and
dead-end life by another Talented benefactor, and if this child was just as
salvageable, Isabelle would see to it that she was taken care of as well.